To Freely Serve
by Mark of the Asphodel
Summary: Norne frets as it becomes apparent the war isn't going according to plan. The isle of Pyrathi just wasn't what she was expecting. FE11.
1. Strange Times in Port Anri

**To Freely Serve**

_**volunteer:**_ a person who voluntarily undertakes or expresses a willingness to undertake a service; as one who enters into military service voluntarily

Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon_ or any of its characters.

Warning: There's a war going on, and some characters die.

* * *

**Chapter One: Strange Goings-On in Port Anri**

The temple bells rang out the ninth hour as Norne stood at her post at the north wall of Port Anri. She'd been there since daybreak, bow in hands and loaded quiver on her back, ready to fend off invaders. Mind, there just wasn't much in town to take over. Port Anri, despite the grand name, wasn't much on a map. Nothing compared to the Twin Towns in Western Altea, the ones that shut their gates against each other. Even Castle Town, hiding in the the shadows of the royal fortress, was larger. But Port Anri was Norne's home, and she was sworn to defend it if it meant standing here for hours with a terrible itch between her shoulder blades.

"I wish I had company. It's mighty peaceful on this side of town."

Yellow eyes shimmered at her from the shadows, but Norne didn't flinch. There weren't any dragons or dark creatures lurking in the back alleys of Port Anri.

"Nice little kitty, eh? You be a good kitty and eat all those dirty rats. We don't want the plague this year." They had enough troubles, thank you, with this war bubbling up from the south. In the last few days, a strange mood had taken over the town, sparked by travelers who came to the tavern bearing awful rumors that King Cornelius had died on the battlefield, that the Castle was taken and the whole royal family slain. There wasn't any confirmation yet, and Father Harald hadn't made a statement on the rumors other than to order the watch to double its shifts. A few people packed their things and left on the next ship east, but Norne wasn't going anywhere until Father Harald said it was time to scram.

And then, this morning, the ding-dong of battle reached the very gates of Port Anri, and so Norne was on guard until further notice, in case enemies of the Crown tried climbing the walls. All Norne saw climbing was the sun in the sky. She figured it was close to ten when light footsteps came up behind her, the sound of one person without much in the way of armor.

"Halt, in the name of the King!"

"Norne! Stay your arrow!"

Norne squinted into the gloom.

"That you, Brion?"

There were dozens of boys in and around Port Anri with that height and build and thick mop of dark hair, but Norne would have known him on sight even without recognizing his voice. There was just something unmistakably _Brion_ about the way he held up his hands.

"They've called off the watch, Norne. The battle outside is done, and they've opened the gates."

"Who won?"

"We did. Well, our knights, I mean." Those being the knights of Altea, of course, as Port Anri didn't have anything besides the Village Watch to defend itself. "But Norne, they were fighting soldiers from Gra."

Gra. Altea's sister-kingdom and ally.

"Aye. So the rumors are true, then. Gra has turned its back on us." Norne lowered her bow, though she didn't immediately put the arrow away. "I wonder if the rest of these mad rumors have truth to them."

"There were sky-riders, Norne. That doesn't sound like Gra... that could be Macedon."

_Macedon_. Home of the fierce and beautiful Pegasus Knights, and the dragon-riders too. Norne held her arrow in a beam of light so that its head reflected the sun.

"Well, not much point in standin' around. But, if it's all the same to you, Brion, I'll keep my own guard up a while yet."

-x-

It was Norne's day off from the stables, so she had hours to herself before her regular evening watch. Since she was out and about, and the day was fair, it seemed a waste of the sun to crawl back to her room at Master Nick's. She decided to take a walk outside Port Anri and see the battlefield for herself, now that all the fighting was done. On her way toward the village gates, Norne passed three strangers going in the opposite direction. _Strangers_ was truly the word for them, as something about them caught Norne's attention even though there was nothing specifically odd about them. The leader of the three was tall man with silver hair; he had the hard, lined face of a man who'd seen his share of sun and bad weather, but the way he carried himself said that he wasn't any farmer. The old man had a pair of boys tagging behind him. One looked to be a few years older than Norne, and the other was a couple of years younger. Norne watched the elder of the boys with interest.

"And they call my hair red," Norne muttered to herself. "That boy has hair redder than dragons' eyes."

The old man had a fine steel sword, the redhead an iron sword, and the little boy had a full quiver on his back- and a steel bow to make Norne's heart spark with envy.

"Ah, they have money. Must be another lot looking to take the next ship east."

They had travelers' cloaks, but Norne thought she saw dark blood on the leg of the redhead. Had they been involved somehow in the morning's battle?

Then, a _bang_ from inside the apothecary. Green light flooded the windows, and greenish smoke began to curl out from the windowpanes that were already cracked.

Norne sighed. It was just Master Syd's apprentice messing something up again. Young Gale always kept wanting to be creative, and creativity often ended with explosions and fire and terrible smells. Norne was used to Gale's mishaps, and so her interest was really caught by the way the younger boy whirled to face the source of the bang. He didn't react as a trained archer might- instead, his right hand went to his belt, like he was reaching for an invisible sword.

-x-

Norne went into the apothecary's to give poor Gale a hand in cleaning up the mess. When she came out into the light again, the temple workers were bringing in the morning's dead. Father Harald was having an agitated conversation with an old man in fine bishop's robes. Norne didn't know why such an grand figure would be in Port Anri cleaning up after a minor battle, and in between this old man and the one with the kids, something strange was going on. Well, Norne of the Village Watch was duty-bound to investigate; she drew close enough to hear the conversation that Father Harald was having with the bishop.

"This is a terrible thing, terrible. Some of them are little more than _children_." To Father Harald, who took personal responsibility for the care of every orphan and neglected child in Port Anri, child-soldiers were a mark of a depraved world. Sending someone Norne's own age into battle was barely acceptable, and sending anyone younger should have been criminal, at least to Father's way of thinking.

The old bishop said something back to Father, very quietly. Norne's ears had a hard time understanding his accent. _Court bishop_, she thought. This was getting stranger by the second. After another exchange with Father Harald that Norne couldn't make out, the bishop turned toward a much younger man.

"Abel, supervise the men. I need to bring Father Harald up to date on the current situation."

That sounded bad, at least to Norne's ears. She considered slipping along behind them to find out what the news was, but there were too many people about for her to pass unnoticed. Instead, she looked to the tall young knight that the old bishop left in charge of the ugly business. He was slender, not a muscle-bound brute, and had nice features and fine armor to go with his splendid green tunic. Cavalier, thought Norne. Temple Knight, maybe. Good old King Cornelius sent his own men up to protect little Port Anri, and in the midst of a great war, too. Norne loved her king in the same way she loved the fire gods and the wind gods. He wasn't quite real to her in the way that Brion and Father Harald were real, but the thought that King Cornelius might've sent some Temple Knights to watch over the corner of Altea that Norne called her own... well, it was enough to make Norne vow to go down to Castle Town at the next festival and shout out her thanks to the king, personally.

Young Abel didn't seem to be having a good morning; there were quite a lot of bodies, more than Norne expected really, and more than Father Harald's crew expected from the looks of things.

"May I be of assistance?"

The cavalier whipped around, the narrowed eyes and look of irritation giving way to a softer expression when he caught sight of her bracer and chestguard.

"You're a soldier?"

"Not a knight of the King's army such as yourself, sir." Even if he _wasn't_ one of the Temple Knights, he'd be flattered to be taken for one. "Just a member of the Village Watch."

"An archer?"

"Aye. If you need a hand with this sad piece of work, I'll lend you my own."

Abel looked her over, sizing her up in the way a man did when he wasn't sure a _girl_ was up to the task. Norne held steady; she knew she didn't have the quickest legs around, but she had a good back and a strong pair of arms.

"I'll get you a shovel," said Sir Abel of the Temple Knights.

-x-

Norne ended up instead with a needle and thread, fitting the dead with their shrouds. All in all, she would have rather handled the shovel. A strange lot of people'd given up their lives outside the village gates. Two mages in scarlet robes, and some foot-soldiers, and a pair of girls about Norne's own age. They weren't archers, though.

"Well, I'll be. Brion was telling the truth about those sky-riders." Norne once dreamed of being a Pegasus Knight until she realized that there was no such thing as a bow-using Pegasus rider. A Pegasus Knight would sooner spit on a bow than shoot one. After that, she dreamed of being a mounted archer, but that was a style of fighting foreign to Altea. So Norne had to give up her dreams of being like the legendary plains-riders of Aurelis, and the closest she was going to get to being a horsewoman was shoveling out filthy hay from Master Nick's stables.

"No, I don't know any of their names," Sir Abel was telling Father Harald. "They didn't take the time to introduce themselves before attacking. This alone is one of our own."

Norne looked at the body the cavalier was pointing to. It was- or had been- a boy about Norne's own age.

"But that's a Gra uniform," Father Harald was saying.

"It's a stolen uniform," Abel said impatiently. "His own clothes were ruined before the battle. Look, I can give you his history if you promise to try and contact his family."

Norne took a second look at the dead boy in his stolen uniform. It was plain to her eyes _what_ he'd been before his untimely death- he was wearing a bracer and chestguard, and an archer's glove too. The chestguard hadn't protected him any. Norne felt a pang of sadness over the archer, something deeper than the mere interest she'd had in the foreign Pegasus Knights. He was one of her own kind, in a sense.

"His name was Gordin. G-o-r-d-i-n. Apprentice archer, lived at the Castle with the rest of the trainees. Father was a captain in the King's army. Missing in Grust, presumed dead. Mother lives in the village of Westhaven with her younger son... I believe his name's Ryan."

Once all the bodies were decently wrapped in their grave-clothes, Norne abandoned the needlework to lend her hands to Father Harald's men. It took hours for Norne and the men to dig and fill all the graves. Father Harald said prayers over each of the dead, giving as much care to the nameless he did to the little archer Gordin. Friend or enemy, they were all part of the cold earth now. Norne lingered for a moment at one grave, just long enough for the men to be out of earshot so that she could say prayer of her own.

"And may the gods grant rest to the souls of young archers."

-x-

The old bishop gave Norne a few pieces of gold as payment for her help. Norne washed the muck off her hands there at the temple and then went off to the Sword and Crown for a bit of supper.

"Afternoon, Norne."

"Afternoon, Adam." Norne slipped onto an empty stool at the counter. "I'll take my usual."

While Norne waited for her supper, she saw a few familiar faces pass through the door out of the corner of her eye. It was the rich visitors, all right- the old man and two boys. Adam set the platter of bread, cheese, and butter down at the counter along with a cup of ale. Norne flipped him one of her new coins.

"Put the difference on my account, Adam."

"A real Golden Rose?" Adam turned the coin over so he could see the design in the dim light. "Where'd you score this, Norne?"

"It's what I get for lendin' a spot of help to an old man." Even as she was speaking to Adam, Norne was keeping one eye on this _other_ old man. He directed the younger boy, who was still clutching that steel bow, to sit at the counter in the place next to Norne.

"You'll wait here while I make the arrangements. We'll have a meal sent up to the room."

"Yes, Grandfather," the boy said, so softly Norne could hardly hear him.

For a second, Norne saw a deep kindness in the old man's eyes. Then his white-caterpillar eyebrows drew back together in a frown, and he addressed the older boy in a voice more gruff than he used with the little one.

"Cain, I want to speak with you."

"Yes, Gramps," said the redhead. He'd been staring at the list of Adam's daily fare with a look of plain hunger on his face, and didn't sound pleased to be dragged away.

"Huh," Norne snorted. "Attitudes like that is what gets our kind in trouble."

At the words "our kind," the archer boy turned his head ever so slightly, just enough that Norne could tell he was watching her. Hoping he didn't take it the wrong way, Norne smiled at him and pulled at a loose strand of her hair.

"Temper. Red hair. You've heard the stories, I'm sure."

He didn't talk, and just gave her a glance from a pair of the widest, longest-lashed blue eyes that Norne had ever seen on a boy. Pretty eyes, smooth pale skin, and hair that was as far from red as it could get- he didn't take after Gramps, that was for sure, or big brother either. Close-to, Norne saw a great deal odd about him. He wasn't wearing the right equipment, for a start. Not even a bracer. His cloak was common cloth, but his boots were fine leather. Even so, they were covered in filth, and there was a bit of cobweb in his hair, like he'd been crawling through that hulk of an abandoned prison to the southeast of the village.

"You're an archer, too, eh?"

"Not a very good one." He said it without looking at her.

"Ah, you must be. That's a fine steel bow there." Norne would love to get her hands on such a thing. She could _use_ one, but she couldn't afford one. Three Golden Roses wouldn't land her a steel bow, that was for certain.

"It's not mine. It's a gift. I meant to give it to one of my... friends."

"Ah." From the way he talked, the boy was upper-class, maybe even a noble. That would explain the fine sword Gramps was wearing. As fine-spoken as the archer boy was, though, there was something strange in his voice. Strange to Norne's ears, anyway. "And your friend's not in a place to be needin' a bow, now."

"I certainly hope not."

Norne looked over him again. That was a lot of bitterness to pack into a couple of words, especially with one of those words being "hope." Then again... if Gramps was looking after him, his parents were probably dead. Norne had been _there_, all right. She was thinking over whether she should try talking to him any more, or just mind her own business and supper, when yet another newly familiar face came in the door.

"Marc!"

So... Sir Temple Knight knew Archer Boy.

"Is it over, Abel?" Again, said without looking.

"Yes. It's over." Like Gramps, Abel sounded a lot softer around young Marc. Norne had suspicions about whose steel bow that should've been, but now she was sure of it. If little Gordin the Apprentice Archer was Marc the Not Very Good Archer's friend... well, Marc'd just had a very bad day. And Gordin'd had rather a worse one.

"I should have been there," Marc was saying.

"Trust me when I say you wouldn't want to be," Sir Abel began. Then Cain the Red showed up, his hair ruffled and a sulk plain on his face. He greeted Sir Abel with a nod, and Norne noted _that_, too.

"Come along, Marc; we'll be staying here the night. Grandfather says we'll leave in the morning, as soon as the tide's in our favor."

"Coming, brother."

Norne quickly spread butter on the last her round of bread.

"Catch, Marc!"

He was quick. Caught it butter-side up and everything.

"You shouldn't have," he said, in that same strange voice.

"I've plenty. Good luck." In truth, Norne could live on buttered bread and cheese for weeks with the remainder of that Golden Rose. She might even treat Brion a couple of times, as he'd been looking a bit thin lately.

"Thank you," Marc said in the end, as his brother dragged him off.

-x-

Norne still had a few hours to fritter away before her evening watch. She was planning to borrow one of the stable horses and take a nice ride along the shore when the word came for all citizens of Port Anri to assemble in the village square.

"Norne!" Brion again, calling to her to stand by him when Father Harald gave them the news. And Father Harald gave it to them straight and gave it cold, despite the fear in his eyes. They'd been betrayed. King Cornelius was dead in battle. The Gra soldiers they'd buried were only the first scouts of an entire occupation force. The Castle was taken, and nobody knew where the queen or her two children were. Port Anri was to open its gates and surrender peacefully so that no more lives would be lost.

"Well, I guess the Village Watch is out of a job," Norne said, for lack of anything better to say. "It's not like I'll miss the gold, seein' as we did it for free."

"I don't care if we're not allowed to fight," said Brion. "I'll pick them off in their sleep, the swine."

"Somebody's going to be fightin' back. Our knights aren't just going to lie down like a pack of tired dogs." A glimmer of an idea was shaping up in the back of Norne's head.

"You heard Father Harald. Our knights have been slaughtered, down to the man."

"Not all of them. I've seen a couple of them in town," Norne said, but Brion was onto other things already.

"It makes me sick to think of the poor queen and the prince and princess."

"How old were they? The prince and princess, I mean?"

"Princess Elice was born a year to the day before I was," Brion said without having to think about it. "Prince Marth is thirteen... no, fourteen now, he'd be."

"What'd they look like?"

Brion gave Norne a glowing account of the fair Elice, whom he'd seen at a procession at one of the festivals in Castle Town. He went on about the princess a little too much for Norne's liking- the exact color of her hair, and the shape of her nose, and all of it. Of Prince Marth, Brion only could say that he "looked like Elice, mostly," and seemed small for his age.

"It's a shame, Brion," Norne said, shaking her head. "Listen, I have to run back to the tavern for a moment. I need to collect something from Adam."

Norne headed right back to the Sword and Crown; she passed at least a dozen people fleeing the village, headed for who-knew-where with their arms piled with wine-jugs and loaves of bread.

"I'm staying," said Adam. He stood at his counter with the defiance of a guard at his post. "I'll sell ale to the Dark Dragon himself before I give up this place." Adam's folks had been running the tavern since Port Anri was a half-dozen buildings named Westport Crossing.

"Well, from what Father Harald said, you'll be entertainin' the Sable Knights before long. Better get out your best ale. I hear the Grustians are picky about their drink."

"If you've ever heard that, Norne, it's because I've told it to you." They were chatting like the world wasn't falling into ruin.

"Adam, who're those travelers stayin' the night in the inn? They struck me as a strange lot. Are we sure they're not spies?"

Adam chuckled and set down the glass he was polishing.

"They're not spies, Norne. I can't tell you more than that."

-x-

Norne's last stop for information-gathering was the docks. The south pier there in Port Anri didn't have answers, so she decided to try her luck at the north pier up the coast. It was used by fishermen, mostly, but a strange pack of travelers looking to skip town in a hurry might find the lonely dock a better place to escape from. She'd get farther on a horse, so Norne took Isolde, her favorite mare out of Master Nick's stables. Isolde was a lovely chestnut with a white star on the forehead, and she had a fine gait and fine temperament to match her looks. Norne left Master Nick her remaining Golden Roses along with a note, just as an insurance against charges of horse-thieving.

Norne's hunch that she'd meet someone interesting down at the docks paid off. That someone turned out to be pacing around as best as his armor would allow him to pace. This wasn't armor stitched together from leftover bits and pieces; it was a whole shining suit, the sort of armor Norne saw once at a shop in Castle Town.

"He's one of the King's men, for sure," Norne said. "Come on, Isolde. We'll get to the bottom of this one yet."

She tried to slick down her hair so as to make a fine appearance for the knight, but in between the wind and the ride, Norne feared her hair was beyond fixing. Her best smile would have to do for charm.

"Pardon me, sir, but might you be one of the Temple Knights?"

He looked down at her.

"Yes, miss. Is something the matter?"

He talked fancy for a big bruiser, thought Norne. But he had a nice face- not handsome like the Abel the cavalier, but a _kind_ face. Also odd, for a bruiser.

"Norne the archer, at your service. I want to do whatever I can to help our kingdom."

"What is your background, Norne?"

"Lived here in Port Anri since I was six. I've been workin' for Master Nick of Tower Street since I was eleven, been a member of the Village Watch for two years now. Father Harald can vouch for me, as well."

"That sounds fine, Norne. You have your own horse?"

"Aye, sir." _I do now_, thought Norne.

"Well, here's your first mission, Norne. I need you to ride to the northwestern fortifications and make contact with the garrison there. Ride back to us straight-away with your report, and be here by daybreak. We'll sail when the tide turns, but I would like word from the garrison before we go."

So Norne had her orders, and the knight (Sir Draug was his name) gave her a map, and she was off. It was no small job, either. Norne reckoned it was as likely a test for her as it was something that wanted doing, but she rode west into a blazing sunset, rode through purple twilight. Black smoke and orange fire lit up the skies to the south, and Norne knew that Castle Town was burning. Norne couldn't take a direct route across the open fields, and so she dodged hills and trees, keeping covered in case any Macedonian Pegasus Knights were on the lookout.

_This is as close as I'll likely come to being a horsewoman_, she thought. Not that she was able to shoot anything. Isolde was a smooth ride, but not _that_ smooth. It took Norne the better part of four hours to make it to the nearest fort, as she didn't dare risk abusing Isolde just for the sake of speed. It took another half hour to convince the garrison there to give her the message; with Gra going traitor on them, nobody trusted anyone. Then she was off again, into the darkness, and she had to measure the time by the height of the moon. The going back was tougher, as Norne's whole body felt battered by then, and Isolde was tired, too. She was going by instinct, mostly; in some moments, she dozed off in the saddle, and twice she rolled under some bushes for a catnap while Isolde grazed. The lightening sky to the east drove her on, though, and Norne made it back to the docks just before the first rays of the sun broke above the horizon.

The already-familiar shape of Sir Draug was waiting for her. Norne handed Isolde over to the first available person- Cain the redhead, she thought- and dashed up to Sir Draug with a burst of new energy. Only then did she notice Draug had somebody with him

It was the boy archer from the Sword and Crown- and this time, he had both the sword and the crown on him. Norne might have felt embarrassed at the idea that _she'd_ given a piece of dark bread as charity to the Prince of Altea, but it was really the kind of day that turned notions of what was right and proper all inside out and backwards.

And first, she had her mission to complete.

"Draug, sir! The enemy has crossed the border from the west! They'll be upon us, soon."

"Right, we're on our way." Sir Draug looked down at little "Marc" and addressed him in a tone of voice no common archers merited. "Sire, this is Norne. She caught wind of our struggle and wishes to fight for Altea."

The prince looked at Norne directly; he recognized her for certain, despite the general look of shock in his eyes.

"Prince Marth, 'tis an honor. By your leave, though, I'll be saving the curtsy-bobbin' for later." He stared back at her with those wide blue eyes, lost for words this time. "Quickly, sire!"

When the prince was safely inside the ship, Norne stepped back, a woozy feeling coming over her. Relief and the need for sleep made her feel as limp as a rag doll, and her empty stomach growled in a way that wasn't polite. She saw that Sir Abel was leading Isolde up to the ramp, but didn't quite grasp the importance of him taking her horse.

"Norne, get on the ship!" Draug's shout woke her from the daze.

"Er, oops." Norne scrambled up the gangplank.

-x-

After all the shouting and running around, it was quiet, and they'd nothing to do. Norne stood on the main deck, gazing out at the little line of walls and roofs that made up Port Anri. She could see the temple tower, and was straining to pick out more landmarks when a small voice came right at her ear.

"Norne?"

"Yes, sire?" She'd nearly jumped out of her skin when Prince Marth spoke to her.

"You'll make far better use of this than I," said the prince, and he handed her the steel bow.

"Oh... ah..." The words just didn't come, at first, and Norne felt her face getting hot until it likely matched her hair. "I'll do my best, sire!"

Norne followed her promise with a salute. The curtsey-bobbing could wait; right now, Norne of Port Anri was a soldier, not a court lady. She was the one and only archer serving the Crown.

Prince Marth wasn't in a mood to talk, and when he left, Norne held her new bow in the sun, admiring every curve of it.

"Ah, Brion. I wish you could see me now."

Only then did it occur to Norne that she might never see Brion or Adam, or Father Harald or Master Nick or any of the rest of them again.

"Well, Adam. I hope you have yourself a time with my Golden Rose, as I won't be needin' that account anymore."

Norne felt tears pricking at her eyes as she spoke; she'd been so caught up in the mystery under her nose that she hadn't thought to bid anyone a proper goodbye.

"Goodbye, Brion. Goodbye, Father Harald... oops."

As Port Anri, and Altea itself, became a dark smudge on the horizon, Norne's tears flowed over. On a normal day, it was beneath her as an archer to be seen crying like a little girl, but today just wasn't normal. The open ocean lay before her and this "Talys" place she knew nothing about.

"Gods have mercy on the souls of archers," she said again, as she clutched the steel bow meant for another's hands. Poor little Gordin was staying in Port Anri forever, and Norne was sailing off in his place. It was a funny world, Norne thought, though not funny in the sense that she could smile about it. She might smile, or even laugh one day, if any of them lived long enough. Right now, all Norne had to her name was a horse, a couple of weapons, and her tears.

Well, all that and a duty, Norne thought. The traitors took everything but her reason to fight, and a fight she'd give them when she set foot in Port Anri again.

**End Chapter One**

**

* * *

**

Author's Notes: Time to take a break from the miserable mess of cute boys from Altea and the Peg Knights who love them. I thought the best little archer in _Shadow Dragon_ deserved a turn in the spotlight; her main line of dialogue shows a surprising amount of personality, and those big turquoise-hued eyes are just _too_ adorable. Anyway, nosy Norne finds herself on a one-way boat to Talys... what's it going to be like there, cooped up in a castle with a bunch of teenaged boys? Stay tuned for Chapter Two!

Rundown of facts 'n' stuff: Frey did his canon-sacrifice thing, and Gordin died in the narrative equivalent of Prologue Chapter 4. The "court bishop" who gives Norne the gold is Malledeus the tactician. Norne's friend Brion looks like (well, _is_) the generic villager-boy found throughout the land in FEDS. Norne, in this story, is an orphan (no reason to stay in Altea) who works as a stablehand. It's not too dainty a job for a volunteer soldier, and it gives her a useful skillset for her new life in Marth's army. As for "Marc the archer"- remember that Prologue Chapter 4 is the point where, when Marth enters a village, the villager-lady tells him it's too dangerous and that he needs to get out of Dodge. Hence the splitting up and disguises. Additional notes to go on my DA account as per usual.


	2. Six Guys and Norne

**To Freely Serve**

Disclaimer: I do not own Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon or any of its characters.

Warning: Rating increased to T for wartime ugliness.

* * *

**Chapter Two: Six Guys and Norne**

By the time they finally got to Talys, Norne understood why Prince Marth had gone there to hide. It took forever and a day to get to the place, and Talys was so far off mainland Archanea that even on the best day, you couldn't possibly see the continent from the island. Even worse, they had to take the long way there, going around the Isle of Macedon instead of cutting through the sea between Dolhr and Gra. Norne never had sailed before and feared she might spent the voyage seasick like poor Sir Abel, who was as green as his armor most of the time. Aside from one rough day rounding the south end of Macedon, though, Norne felt just fine, and by the end of their journey she was climbing the rigging in hopes of being the first to catch sight of land.

Along the way, Norne collected the answers to many mysteries. No one knew the whereabouts of Queen Liza, but they had a fair idea of where Princess Elice was, and it wasn't pretty. The princess stayed behind on purpose when the castle fell, just to make sure her young brother had a chance to escape. On hearing that, Norne vowed that she wasn't ever going to complain about the food or the bad air below deck or any of it, not with their own princess suffering as bad, or worse. And as for the prince, Norne had been right in her reckoning of young Marc the archer there at the Sword and Crown- the boy was a newly-made orphan who hadn't begun to get used to the idea. He didn't seem like he was planning to get used to it anytime soon, either, given that he continued to speak of his mother as though she was alive.

"My mother is a princess of Talys. She's the king's younger sister. She's always wanted us to visit the island. Maybe she and Elice will be able to join us. Elice _told me_ she was going to search for Mother." He went on like this for most of the way to Talys.

So it was that they crept out of Altea like thieves, but came into Talys like it was a second home. Once off the boat, it was straight to the castle to meet with the King of Talys himself, who acted like a whole pack of long-lost relatives had finally made it to his table. His Highness made the biggest fuss over the prince, of course, but he had a word for each of the soldiers, which impressed Norne. Sir Jagen, formerly known to Norne as Gramps, introduced her to the king and queen and their little daughter.

"Your Highnesses, this is Norne of the town of Port Anri. When the fortunes of Altea ebbed their lowest, and every sworn knight was marked for death, she stepped forward and offered to freely serve her country."

Put that way, it sounded almost heroic. To be fair, when Norne volunteered her services, she didn't quite realize a slow boat to Talys was part of the bargain. But she just smiled at the king, and pulled off a passable curtsey, hoping her manners were to be judged by the standards of soldiers and not ladies. Nobody laughed, so Norne figured she'd done well enough. She was glad when the attention shifted back to Prince Marth, though.

All through the dinner- a feast, really, with more food than Norne had ever seen in one place- Norne thought she felt a pair of eyes upon her. She finally realized that the big eyes of the little Talys princess were watching her.

"Are you a Pegasus Knight, Norne?" the princess finally asked in her honey-sweet voice.

"No, my lady princess. I'm an archer."

"Oh." Princess Caeda tipped her head and looked to be thinking it over. "I'm a Pegasus Knight, but I think we can still be friends." And she smiled the most shining smile Norne had seen in many a long year.

"Ah... it would be an honor, Princess!"

Friends! With the right royal princess of the Isle of Talys! Norne decided life on the king's charity was going to be even more interesting than she expected.

-x-

The king didn't lack for generosity. He gave them their very own castle on the eastern side of the island and a band of servants to go with it. They had a cook and a groundskeeper, a serving maid and a scullery maid. At first, it bothered Norne to be waited on; she showed up in the kitchens to lend a hand, and the cook shooed her away. Norne was a soldier now, and she might be the lowest soldier in the pecking order, but that was still a ways above scullery maid. But Norne wanted something to make herself useful, as one couldn't fill an entire day with archery practice, and so she found work in caring for the horses. They had three great war-horses, a couple of useless old nags, and Norne's own Isolde. She'd been relieved that Isolde survived the journey, coming as it did after a run from one end of Altea to the other and back. She probably should have offered so fine a horse to the prince, but he didn't ask for Isolde, and Norne was secretly glad of that.

As far as living went, the King gave Prince Marth an allowance in gold to keep them all fed and clothed, _and_ he gave them permission to use his own hunting forest, well-stocked with deer and small game. Norne did a lot of the hunting herself- better to practice on a moving target, after all- but the knights accompanied her some of the time. Sir Draug joined her most often, but to Norne's surprise Prince Marth came along more than a few times. It made Norne nervous at first- was she supposed to set things up so the prince always got the kill? But it turned out the prince, while not a "very good" archer at all, was at least passable with a crossbow when it came to bringing home a bit for supper. More than that, he didn't seem to care if Norne outshone him with the bow. Norne was _supposed_ to be good with a bow, and the prince was expected to master the sword, and that was that.

So they settled into a new life that was probably as strange for the others as it was for Norne. Sometimes, it was almost like a family, with Sir Jagen playing the kind of father who said no and winked yes, and Malledus the old bishop playing the kind of mother who _truly_ ran a house and just let the father fancy himself in charge. This house was upside down, though, because when push came to shove it was the word of the littlest boy that mattered most. It was like having the Fool's Festival every day of the year, with a child-king telling everybody to jump and them doing it. Norne and her new set of brothers- Draug and Abel and Cain- slowly got used to living with the old men, the prince, and each other. Abel named their home "The Villa," and when Norne asked what a villa was, Abel explained it was the word for a fancy house in the Holy City of Pales. Norne reckoned that was some kind of joke she didn't know enough to get.

There was plenty to do besides archery practice, in the end. Prince Marth let them all know there was never any doubt but that they'd set off for home again. He had to find his mother and sister, after all. Time was the issue; the King of Talys, Sir Jagen, and Malledus were agreed on two points- things were going to get worse on the continent before they were to get better, and Prince Marth was entirely too young to pull off any invasion. Before they could get around to saving Queen Liza and Princess Elice, the prince needed to get better at using his sword, and the rest of them needed a plan. The old men did most of that planning, as they actually knew what they were doing. Sir Jagen was a veteran knight, of course, and Norne had been hearing stories of his great deeds going as far back as she could remember. Malledus turned out to be a "tactician," which was some kind of expert on how to fight a war. The pair of them set all five of their children to preparations for a full-scale invasion of the continent.

Cain and Prince Marth dug into dusty piles of books on strategy and tactics, trying to cram six hundred years of warfare into their heads. Abel took care of the maps- he studied old ones, made new ones, and must have memorized the lay of the whole continent. Draug brushed up on the history and peoples of all the different kingdoms and free cities of Archanea, figuring out who might be friends, and who were definitely enemies, and which ones they might play against the other when the time came. Meanwhile, Norne looked after the horses and kept her ears open for gossip. She and Isolde rode around the island more times than Norne could keep track of, visiting every dock and drinking hole in Talys to collect news from the mainland and elsewhere. It was interesting work, and she did make herself useful; more than once, Norne caught wind of some new development in the war before they learned the official news from the king. It wasn't so much that Norne blended in as it was that people tended to figure a young girl wasn't much important and so spoke freely around her.

A typical mission would begin with some everyday task like a trip to market; on one such day, Norne went to a village to the south of their castle on the grounds that Prince Marth needed some more writing supplies.

"You're from the mainland," a pretty young shopkeeper said as Norne filled her basket with parchment and jars of ink. "You must be one of the refugees."

"Aye," Norne said cheerfully. No point in lying about it, was there? Besides, she couldn't pass herself off as a local, even before she opened her mouth. Copper-colored hair was a rarity on Talys; everyone Norne met sported either shades of brown, or hair so black it was near to blue.

"There's a healer over in the village south of the castle from the mainland, too. I think he said he was from Altea."

Norne paused with her hand suspended above the basket. Could Father Harald have ended up in Talys, as well? But she asked the shopkeeper for a description, and the skinny baldheaded man hiding in the other village couldn't be Father Harald by any stretch of the imagination.

Norne dallied a while in the tavern after she completed her shopping. The Blue Pegasus was much like the Sword and Crown in some ways, with the customers an odd mix of old village men and young seafarers. Norne wasn't sure she liked the food, as Talysian fare came more highly spiced than she was used to, but the lamb stew was comforting enough. The idea of eating meat every day, instead of just feast days, was a novelty she hadn't tired of yet. She'd also developed a taste for the pies filled with little round berries that left both teeth and fingers stained a vivid shade of blue. The fraughan-berry pie gave Norne an excuse to loiter as she listened to a pair of old men playing checkers near the door; she'd encountered them before and they usually had something interesting for her to bring back to report.

This time, the men chatted happily about a rumor so heady it verged on a scandal. It seemed the Talys King didn't have any heir but his little daughter, and so the villagers felt this mysterious lad who looked a bit like young Princess Caeda must be her own half-brother, the King's son by some other lady. It seemed perfectly simple to the old men- the King had given up on having a son by the Queen, and was grooming his by-blow to serve as the heir. On one level it was daft, and mean to the poor little Princess in the bargain, but part of Norne was delighted. Of _course _there was going to be talk about this strange group of people holding court in the old castle. With rumors like this one going around, no one should ever guess the truth.

Norne reported the rumor to Sir Jagen when she got back to The Villa. Sir Jagen had a laugh over it, as Norne expected.

"Let them talk," he said. "The more wild the rumors, the less likely anyone will be to latch on to the truth." And so Norne had the quiet satisfaction of knowing her own instincts weren't far off from the great knight's reading of the situation.

Other days, the rumors weren't quite so amusing.

"The Dolhr-Grust alliance is offerin' a hundred thousand pieces of gold to anyone who can bring the, er, _former_ prince of Altea to the occupation government. In any condition."

Norne heard a clink of steel on pewter, and without even looking she knew that the prince was playing his game of pretending that his cut of meat was General Camus of said Dolhr-Grust alliance.

"They're fools," said Abel of the enemy generals as he worked on his maps that evening. "If they had any sense at all, they'd make the most of the rumors that the prince is dead. Produce a body, even- they've killed enough people to manage it. Instead, they spread the word that there's a steep price on Prince Marth's head, which just serves to keep hope alive in anyone listening. They don't deserve to hold on what they've conquered."

Norne looked at Abel with admiration.

"It's a good thing you're on our side and not theirs, Sir Abel. They'd be able to hold onto it then, I'm sure."

Abel flashed a quick smile at her, and a touch of color rose in his face. He quickly bent back over his maps, and Norne watched him a while. The squiggles and lines that came from his pen were so graceful, a far cry from Norne's own writing, which looked more like the scratches left by chickens in the dust. Norne was so entranced by the work Abel did with his pen that it was a while before she noticed she didn't recognize anything on the map he was marking up.

"That's a different one, Sir Abel." The map looked to have more water on it than land.

"This? It's a map of the world, Norne."

"The whole world... you mean there's other continents besides Archanea?" Norne always had thought that Archanea _was_ the whole of the world.

"This, to the west, is Valencia." Norne took him at his word there, as the map itself said "Barensia" pretty plainly. It was a small continent, and looked as though there weren't but two countries on it.

"Does that say 'Northern Unknowne Land?'" She pointed to a large vague shape in the upper left part of the map.

"Indeed. It's the legendary continent of Yugdral."

"If it's an Unknown Land, how does anyone know it's even there?"

"Myths, Norne. Old stories. 'The Child of Light, true son of his murdered father, gathered his companions and rode against the Dark Empire.' Have you ever heard the _Song of Selis_, Norne?"

"Not a bit of it, sir." Of course, she might well have. Father Harald told all manner of stories and songs to the children.

"They say people from the Unknown Land sailed over the cold seas in great ships painted like dragons. Some landed in northern Aurelis, where they turned their backs on the sea and became the people of the plains. Some went south to Macedon. Maybe some landed in Altea- I've heard you can tell the descendants of the Yugdral sailors by the color of their hair." He reached out to tweak a strand of her hair. Norne squinted at the coppery blur Abel held up in front of her.

"It's not nice to tease me, Sir Abel."

"I'm not teasing. 'Norne' is an uncommon name in Altea. You'd fit right in with the ladies of the _Song of Selis_." Abel seemed to realize he was making her a little cross, and he put away the world map and pulled out a very different one.

"Look there, Norne. Galder Harbor. Are you familiar with it?"

"No, sir. I've heard of the place, but I don't know more than that."

"When we set sail from here, that will be our destination." He had a smile on his lips and a faraway look in his eye. "They'll be expecting a direct assault on Altea, up the river to the capital. They won't imagine what we actually have planned for them."

"And why might they be expecting us with such confidence, sir?"

"Because it's what a noble-minded fool would do. And because a little red-haired scout will be spreading the rumor that our prince has just that sort of noble foolishness in his head." He winked at her. "And I'm not referring to Cain."

"Aye, sir!"

The next evening after supper Abel brought out some of his works, including his own version of the World Map. Most everyone was impressed by his skill, but Prince Marth didn't care for the way Abel described the ocean between Archanea and Yugdral.

"'_Here be Dragons_.' Are you trying to be funny, Abel?"

Abel had a little light smile that he used when he was trying to calm somebody down. He used it on Cain most of the time, but now he put it on for Prince Marth.

"It's just a traditional way of expressing man's terror of the unknown, sire."

"Why bother? We know where the dragons are." And the prince left a slash of black ink across Abel's carefully-lettered drawing of Dolhr. Abel looked down at the damaged map, and Norne could see the little smile never faded.

"Forgive me, sire. I do not mean to make light of our situation." Sir Abel rolled up his maps and left with all his grace and elegance in one piece.

Norne spent the rest of the evening out in the stables. Draug came looking for her after a couple of hours; he found her in the hayloft making braided shapes out of hay stems.

"I'm trying to keep out of sight," she confessed.

The prince was, in Norne's personal opinion, something of a pill at times- crying without real provocation and snapping at the old men. Norne was willing to overlook such evidence of unkingly behavior in a little boy, though she knew that if she ever heard that Prince Marth had mistreated the _horses_, she'd have a hard time forgiving him. Abuse of dumb animals just wasn't something Norne could stomach. Abuse of his elders wasn't much better, but there was some history of ill will between the prince and his tactician that nobody had properly explained to Norne. It had something to do with the way Princess Elice was left behind, and something to do with a knight that died during their flight to Port Anri. These tragedies weren't things spoken of around The Villa.

"You might want to come down, Norne. It's getting dark."

She came down, but she didn't go back to The Villa right away. She and Draug seated themselves on hay bales and talked about nothing much- the barn cats, at first, and then the stray cats Norne used to feed in Port Anri, and then Draug told her of the barracks cat that served as the mascot to the Temple Knights.

"Matilda was a good girl. She slept at the foot of my bed most nights, but she took a fancy to Cain as well. She'd leave him presents." He and Norne shared a smile at the thought of Sir Cain, a stickler for dignity, waking up to dead mice on his pillow. "Matilda disappeared a few days before the castle fell. I have to wonder if she didn't suspect something."

That ended the conversation on a gloomy note, and they were silent for a while. Norne leaned back on the prickly bale, enjoying the smell of the hay and the soft, warm fur of the cat cuddled next to her. The cat was purring so loud that she almost missed the next thing Draug said.

"Norne... you helped Abel to bury Gordin."

"Aye." It wasn't really a question.

"I knew Gordin well. Good lad, excited about having a place in the Royal Guard. He had a brother about three years younger who just adored him. Ryan wanted to join the Guard as well as soon as he was of an age for it." He paused, and even though Norne couldn't seem him well in the near dark, she could _sense_ how uncomfortable Draug was. "The Gra forces took him somehow, captured or kidnapped him. They stuffed him in a Gra uniform and left him in our path, hoping we'd kill one of our own by mistake."

Norne sucked in her breath; she well remembered the dead boy's odd uniform.

"I wasn't there, but I'm told Abel was about to do the lad in with his javelin when Prince Marth recognized him as ours. Well, as soon as he was freed he happily joined in the battle- the skirmish outside your own town, Norne. Not an hour later, he was dead. I never did have the chance to say goodbye to him."

There wasn't much Norne could say to that. She continued to stroke the cat, who began to knead its paws into her side. It felt good in a way.

"He was just a trainee, of course. Only had about two years of service in, none of it in combat. He needed coddling- most new archers do." Draug sighed, and Norne could picture the expression he must have on his face. "But he had the makings of a great sniper."

"There's a lot that happens that doesn't seem right, Big D." Norne had learned that Draug practically hated his name, felt it was an ugly name that made him seem a forbidding person, when nothing could be farther from the truth.

"Yes. Too much. Far too much." Draug shifted noisily on his own bale of hay, and Norne had the impression he was looking at her. "I hope I'm not upsetting you, Norne."

"Not at all," she said promptly. "There's some men who need to keep everything inside of them, and some who need to let it all out. Whatever keeps your own heart in one piece is the right thing, that's my way of seein' it. Sometimes a man's not even consistent to himself. Take our prince. He'll talk of his mum and sister 'til runs short of breath, but you don't ever hear him speak of his father."

That wasn't entirely true. The prince said prayers for his father's soul at every service. But he wouldn't speak of him otherwise, any more than he would say prayers for the souls of the queen or Princess Elice.

-x-

They passed another summer in Talys, and the autumn, then the winter. Winter in Talys wasn't at all bad; warm ocean currents coming up from Macedon kept the air mild, and the taller peaks had a dusting of snow while the valleys stayed green. Best of all, there was plenty of food, even in the depths of the Ice Moon. Soon enough, the trees were in bud, and flowers started poking out of the grass.

One day, Norne was out hunting with the prince, and happened to notice for the first time that he had a couple of inches on her. His arms, once thin as reeds, were now thicker around than Norne's own, and he fired his bow with surprising strength. If the prince weren't so set on mastering the sword, he might have made a decent archer. Then, too, he seemed calmer of late; the outbursts of crying and such had mostly stopped. Part of it seemed to be that the prince was more caught up now in planning revenge than he was in stewing over past griefs, but a good part of the change was, in Norne's opinion, down to the influence of a fair little lass. Princess Caeda used riding practice on her pegasus as an excuse to visit The Villa, and it turned out she was far more interested in the prince than she was in being friends with Norne. Meanwhile, Prince Marth seemed invested in making a good impression on the little Princess of Talys. Whatever the cause of the improved behavior, Norne was glad of it, as it allowed her to imagine she could bring up a tricky matter with her prince.

"It's awful nice of His Highness to let us use his own hunting forest," Norne said, playing simple as an opener.

"Yes. The king has been most gracious to all of us." Prince Marth nocked another arrow, then reconsidered the dove he was aiming for and put the arrow away. "What do you think of him, Norne?"

Norne very nearly couldn't believe it. She had her way of bringing up a delicate subject all plotted out, and here the prince up and _asked_ her for an opinion! Not that she gave_ her_ opinion, exactly.

"Well, most everybody in Talys is right pleased with their king. I've heard some talk of people who had loyalties to a different clan, and felt left out of things after Unification, but otherwise everyone thinks that havin' one king has brought nothing but good to the island." She watched the prince out of the corner of her eye, checking to make sure it was safe to keep talking. "If there's one sore point- beggin' your pardon for sayin' this- it's this hunting forest."

She didn't even need to explain what the problem was; Prince Marth frowned, but it seemed a more thoughtful frown than the look that preceded a royal tantrum.

"The forest laws exist for reasons beyond selfishness, Norne," he replied, and Norne was relieved that he didn't sound at all cross with her. "The king's protected stock ensures that, even in a poor year, there will always be enough deer for the following season. We have fishing laws in Altea for the same purpose."

Norne was quiet; come to think of it, she'd heard a bit of complaining about the fishing laws, too, back when they were at home.

"The punishments may sound severe, but King Mostyn knows he can't stop every poacher determined to shoot in his forest. He can only punish the ones he does catch in a manner that might discourage others from trying their own hand at it."

It sounded sensible enough coming from her prince, but Norne still felt in her gut that a public flogging was a bit too much lay on someone who'd stolen a rabbit.

"Aye, sire. It makes sense that the king's just looking out for his land and his people. All the same, sire, maybe the punishments shouldn't be quite so harsh?" And Norne laughed her I'm-just-a-silly-common-archer laugh, and hoped the prince wouldn't take offense at her for trying to play the advisor.

"The happier everyone is with their king, the safer we are here," Norne said to her pillow that night, as she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd gotten a bit too meddlesome. "If we get turned out of this place, I don't know where we can run to." The capital of the Holy Kingdom of Archanea had fallen, and if _that_ was lost, there wasn't much left for Dolhr to conquer.

Some time later, Norne heard chatter in the village that King Mostyn had stopping giving out floggings for poaching in his forest, and instead assigned any caught poachers to do hard labor in exchange for their stolen supper. Norne smiled to herself, figuring that Prince Marth had brought the subject up with little Princess Caeda, and the princess in turn took the word back to her father. She probably turned on the tears, at that. Norne never spoke of the matter again to the prince, nor did he ever mention the forest laws to her, but Norne felt in her heart that maybe she'd done a little bit to keep their new home in Talys secure.

In the end, though, it didn't matter what Norne did or wanted, any more than it ever had. War came looking for them, but instead of the Sable Order or Macedonian dragonriders, it was pirates. Princess Caeda came screaming out of the sky one blue evening to announce that pirates had come ashore in the west and were endangering her father's castle. After a short period of where's-my-cuirass, where's-my-javelin, the Temple Knights rode again, with Norne running along behind them.

The pirates had a head start on the Temple Knights, though- they'd already sacked and burned the village where Norne did her shopping. The Blue Pegasus was a heap of ashes with copper pots and chess-pieces scattered in the filth. Norne saw one old man dead at the chessboard, saw shopkeepers slain in their own stalls, lying beneath their own ruined goods. The pretty girl who sold inks and parchment lay dead in the lane with her skirts hiked up around her hips. Norne's eyes burned from the smoke and her own tears, and it gave her horrible satisfaction to bury an arrow of her steel bow in the throat of the next pirate she laid eyes upon. Even after they'd saved the other village, and rescued that Altean priest, and reclaimed the castle, the bitterness lingered in Norne's throat. In spite of King Mostyn's praise and generosity, Norne was right glad when they sailed west to plant the flag of Altea on the mainland again, and to let all of Archanea know that Prince Marth and his knights were back in the fight.

**End Chapter Two**

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Author's Notes: Well, there's my take on the Exile Years. Marth isn't on his best behavior in this chapter, but in his defense (and my own) he's going through his teenaged Awkward Phase (age fourteen through sixteen). That's hard enough without war, murder, exile, and living on charity. I took the FEDS reference to "shak[ing] with anger and grief" to be a recurrent issue rather than a one-time instance. He's settled down by the end of the chapter, anyway.

Canon'n'Stuff: No, there isn't anything in canon to back up Queen Liza being from Talys. I liked the idea and I think it makes sense in terms of King Mostyn being a true ally of Altea- he's protecting his own sister's kids. Yes, that makes Marth and Caeda first cousins in this story. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, and it's historically plausible. Deal. Same thing with Abel the Mapmaker- I make him the artistic cavalier to contrast with straight-arrow future tactician Cain. The Yugdral (Jugdral) reference has a grain of canonical truth, though, as apparently the two continents are on the same world, with the events of FE4 and FE5 taking place a thousand years prior to FE1/3/DS. Oh, and Talys is vaguely Irish in this, the same way Altea is vaguely English. "Ogma" is a Celtic name, and "Caeda" looks to me like Romanized Celtic something-or-other, so... yeah.

And yes, those were intimations of Draug/Norne. Next stop, the actual war path. Full notes to go on my DevArt account when I have the time.


	3. Samsooth Mountain Holiday

**To Freely Serve**

Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Rated T for violence and some hints of "adult themes."

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**Chapter Three: Samsooth Mountain Holiday**

The knights of Altea didn't exactly make a glorious entry onto the mainland. The first thing they found on coming to Galder Harbor was another pack of pirates, and so instead of a clash with the Dolhr-Grust imperial alliance, Norne found herself in the thick of a pretty ugly brawl. Thanks to Draug watching her back, she didn't get more than a couple of bruises out of it, but she couldn't really say it was fun. The people of Galder welcomed them like heroes, though, and it was a curious thing to see dignified old men going down on both knees before Prince Marth and calling him "mighty" when he was really still what the folk of Talys called "a wee lad."

They had a nice stay in Galder to rest up for whatever the next leg of the journey had waiting for them. The high-ranking types like Prince Marth and the princess Caeda- who'd been allowed to come with them for reasons Norne didn't entirely understand- got to stay with the mayor of Galder in his fine home, and the rest of them were put up at an inn; it was a fair sight fancier than the Sword and Crown back home, but there was something strange about the place.

"For someone who claims to be an honest innkeeper, our new friend Prospero certainly has a good many ladies of ill repute around his establishment," said Sir Abel. In other words, Prospero was doing a side business as a whore-keeper. Norne stuck close to Draug so that passers-by wouldn't mistake her for something on the inn's bill of fare, and she wondered if it wouldn't be worth her while to cut her hair short and play at being a boy. Even in Talys, she'd heard of the East Coast and its vices, and already that looked to be true.

They got out of Galder without too much trouble, aside from the incident with the mayor's pretty golden-haired granddaughter, and once that was smoothed over they were off on the road to Aurelis to join up with the last army standing against the Dolhr Empire. There was only one catch- the road to Aurelis went through a range of mountains with the charming nickname "The Ghoul's Teeth."

-x-

The Samsooth Mountains had two things Norne didn't want to meet. One was the Samsooth bandits themselves, the "Sires of the Ghoul's Teeth," and the other was wolves. She had Castor to watch her back as they went foraging, but the Talysian bowman struck her as a bit of a sneak. He had the little glittering eyes of a rat, and it didn't help that they'd first encountered him in the pay of the enemy. Princess Caeda vouched for Castor after she lured him to their side with a bag of gold, but Norne wished she had someone she knew better as her hunting companion. He was a decent shot with his crossbow, though. They brought back enough small game and mushrooms to camp that everyone would sleep with a full belly that night.

"Here you go, Father," Norne said to old Wrys as she handed him her sack of mushrooms. "I'm hoping they're not _all_ poison."

As healers went, Father Wrys wasn't all that powerful. Norne had heard of clerics who could bring a person back when they were at the very edge of death, and Wrys made no claims to that kind of feat. He had knowledge, though, of herbs and simples and protective charms. And, fortunately for them all, he could sort out food from poison in these strange parts. Norne learned quite a lot just by talking to the priest as she chopped up the mushrooms under his direction.

"So the yellow ones that look like scrambled-up eggs are good?" They'd looked so strange that Norne at first hesitated to collect them.

"They're not only safe, but quite tasty. Even better, no poisonous fungi resemble them in the least, so you can feel confident in eating them."

It felt a little like a holiday as Norne worked on their supper. Some of Princess Caeda's men had a nice fire going, and the knights were sitting around telling stories and mostly enjoying themselves. Mostly. Prince Marth kept pacing around the clearing, looking to the sky now and again. Princess Caeda hadn't come back yet from what was called a "reconnaissance mission," and it was getting late.

Norne still didn't understand why the King of Talys let his little daughter go off to battle, even if His Majesty _had_ provided her with a number of men for protection. Now that it was war, Caeda made herself out to be all knight and no princess, and to be sure she was a brave little thing, flying up to men three times her size to slash them with her favorite spear. Brave or not, she was all of fourteen, and it made Norne recall Father Harald's sermons against using children in war whenever Caeda came back to camp with her lance bloodied. They shared a tent, though Norne wasn't sure who was protecting whom, really. A bow wasn't the best weapon to use against late-night intruders at close quarters. Norne had a dagger, of course, but she wasn't entirely certain she could jam it into somebody who meant harm. Still, Norne did benefit from having the princess along, as the men tended to watch their manners around little Caeda... and they likely wouldn't have done such for a common archer-girl.

Norne could hear Prince Marth's sigh of relief as the shape of Caeda's pegasus came down through the trees.

"There is a large group of armed men to the north of us, blocking the pass to Aurelis," the princess reported. "I'd call it a bandit camp."

"Soothsires," said old Malledus, who didn't sound surprised in the least. He looked then to the prince, who didn't look much surprised either. "Sire, we should be prepared to confront them."

"Fine. Someone ought to deal with the Soothsire menace, and it might as well be us." Prince Marth said it as though it were no more of a matter than clearing a mouse-nest out of the pantry. "How many were there, Caeda?"

"Between fifteen and twenty. I saw at least one woman in the camp- a cleric, I think."

With supper over, Norne turned her attentions to her stock of weapons, mindful that there was likely to be a fight tomorrow. She had a collection of bows now- her old one, and the steel one the prince had given her, and a beautiful new longbow that she'd been given in Galder. It was too dark now to practice with it, as she'd lose all her arrows in the woods, but Norne took a few minutes to caress the weapon.

Crossbow arrows flew straight, and they struck hard enough to punch even through a knight's armor. They didn't do _much_ damage to a fully-armored knight, but it was possible to stand in the right place and basically pester someone to death. Longbows, though, were another matter entirely. You couldn't fire a longbow straight at a target; you had to aim it up at an angle. To hit a target with a longbow took more skill than most who called themselves bowmen could manage- more skill, and long months of training instead of a week's practice. Mastery of a longbow was what set a true archer apart from any fool woodsman who called himself a hunter. That lovely bow and its graceful feathered arrows kept calling to Norne, and she looked forward to the day when she could make use of it.

-x-

They went looking for trouble in the morning, but trouble found them in the pretty shape of that cleric that Princess Caeda had spotted from above. The cleric and a friend of hers came barreling down a narrow mountain pass and right into their midst- and a gang of armed and angry Soothsires came down after them. Prince Marth left Jagen in charge of half the army, telling them them to clear out the bandit camp while _he_ went to check out a village nestled in the shadow of the Ghoul's Teeth. Captain Ogma from Talys and one of his men joined Draug, Sir Abel, and Norne herself as the prince's escort, which turned out to be a smart move as many a bandit came popping out from behind rocks and bushes on their way to the village.

The prince came back from his visit looking perturbed.

"I don't know that the villagers are on our side around these parts," he said, and held up a vicious-looking axe for them to see. "The elder gave me this; he called it cursed, and said it drinks the blood of its user."

Norne stared at the axe; just looking at it made her uneasy. The blade was red- not painted red, actually red, like something blood-colored was mixed into the metal.

"That's a poor gift," said Captain Ogma. "We can't sell it, as only the most ignorant merchant would pay gold for such a thing."

"I'll keep this for now," Prince Marth said. "Perhaps later we can drop it in a river."

Norne didn't even bother to ask why the prince would keep a weapon he didn't know how to use, as plainly the idea was _not_ to use the axe. She soon forgot about this unusual gift, though, as more Soothsires were on the way to greet them. Abel rode off to be a distraction; he was already proving one of the best among them, strong and swift and deadly, and he could be trusted not to get himself killed. Prince Marth and the Talysians took cover in the bushes, and Norne and Draug put a carefully hatched plan into motion as the bandits came closer.

Draug set his massive shield down in front of Norne, and she crouched so that it covered her from head to toe. When the enemy was in striking distance, Draug raised the shield enough for Norne to have a clear shot. Norne let fly an arrow, and Draug immediately dropped the shield to cover her again. They crept forward in this way, with the other men finishing off the trail of wounded until they could rejoin Abel at a river crossing.

"I think I found the King of the Soothsires," Abel said. "He's sitting atop a pretty pile of treasure and must think we're stupid enough to come after it."

The bandit king must've taken their measure, because come after it they did, though Prince Marth sent Abel back to check up on Sir Jagen and the others. No sooner were they over the river than another pair of bandits leapt out at them brandishing axes. Draug knocked one to the ground, right where Prince Marth could land a killing blow on the bandit's neck. The other one, though, came at Norne. She dodged, but in doing so, she tripped, and landed hard on the ground herself. She heard two strikes of a sword and the heavy _thunk_ of a man dropping to the earth, and found herself lying next to the man that'd tried to kill her. Norne, in a daze, stared a long moment at the dead bandit. The blood on his head and his leg was so _shiny_, like the crimson paint in the picture of _St. Anri and the Dragon_ back in Father Harald's temple.

"Ooh." Her head felt like it was about to roll off of her neck, and her tail end didn't feel any better. "Thanks, Captain Ogma."

"My pleasure." The big man from Talys was a cool one, the kind of fighter who made a battle seem as easy as putting one's boots on.

"I'm not hurt. Much." One knee was bleeding, but it wasn't going to kill her. Norne rejoined Draug then, figuring that the routine they worked out stood the best chance of keeping her safe in case of another ambush. They crept forward, one foot at a time, and she felt safe enough right until they were within striking distance of the Soothsire boss.

"I don't want to get any closer, Big D."

The boss was a big, strong, _evil_ looking man, a hundred times more menacing than the pirate captains they'd handled earlier, but what really startled Norne was the number of axes the man had on him. He had one in his hand and was caressing it like the weapon was a dear little bird.

"My lance can't stand up against his axe-heads," said Draug, and it wasn't like he was a man prone to exaggeration. "I'll be disarmed."

"If I had my longbow, I could stand at a safe distance and bleed him dry." But the longbow was tucked away at the camp, as Norne knew she didn't have the skill or the speed for it yet.

The bandit leader flung his hand-axe at them. Norne instinctively shrank back behind Draug's shield, but instead of flying straight, the axe went in a circle and returned to the bandit, who plucked it from the air and grinned at them.

"I really don't want to get closer than this," Norne said again as she completely covered herself with the shield. Draug didn't respond, except to keep a hand on Norne's shoulder in a way that said he wasn't getting any closer, either.

The bandit king said insulting things to Norne about what he liked to do with pretty little girls, especially redheaded ones, and Draug went dark in the face but didn't lunge forward to defend Norne's honor. It came as a great relief to Norne to see Draug's restraint, since the taunting and obscenities were pretty clearly a lure to see them both in harm's way. They waited out the rubbish until Prince Marth launched his surprise attack from behind, backed by Captain Ogma and his axe-man Cord. They fell on the bandit king, three against one, and even then it wasn't good odds. Cord staggered back with an ugly wound across his thigh, and Ogma drew blood but didn't manage to fell the bandit. That left the prince to finish the job, and Norne sucked in a fearful breath as she readied her bow in case it was up to _her_ to land the killing shot.

The bandit king looked flat-out surprised to see a young boy charging him like a little mad bull. Prince Marth's way of using his sword caught people off their guard. They were used to seeing someone come slicing through with a great heavy blade, the way Captain Ogma fought. When Prince Marth went straight at their hearts, they didn't know which way to dodge, and so most of them ended up like the bandit king did now: skewered like a chunk of meat.

"That's a lovely staff," said Prince Marth, after they'd tended Cord's injury and were sorting through the bandit king's loot. "Uncommon and rather expensive. I think I know who the owner might be."

-x-

The camp was abuzz over the mysterious cleric who'd joined them at the start of the battle.

"Macedonian, if I'm not mistaken," Draug said of Sister Lena, who _did_ turn out to be the owner of the beautiful healing staff.

"How can you tell?" asked Norne.

"The color of her hair and eyes, and the way she speaks. Though, to be honest, there's something odd in her manner of speech. Either she's spent some time in Grust..." He trailed off, then shook his head and wouldn't say any more.

"Given Grust and Macedon are the lot we're fighting against, shouldn't we be a little worried about having her around?" Clerics were sworn not to harm any, but that didn't mean they couldn't be spies. Also, there was no telling that this Lena was actually just a cleric, as she might be a battle-priestess pretending to be a simple healer.

If Norne had her suspicions of Sister Lena, her friends felt even less happy about the two other men who'd joined the ranks that day.

"Oh, good. Another mercenary," was Sir Cain's reaction to their new members. "You can't have too many fighters whose loyalties run as deep as your own supply of gold."

"Tsk," Abel said to him. "Did you think we could truly retake Altea with half-a-dozen soldiers? We should be grateful that so many are willing to aid us."

"Yes, and who are they? That crew from Talys who weren't much good at defending their own country, a crazy pirate, that sadsack bowman that Princess Caeda had to bribe, and now a hired killer. Oh, and don't forget the thief." Cain jerked his head in the direction of man with ragged red hair who was standing by Sister Lena.

"I think you're being a little harsh, Cain," Abel put in. "After all, some might call us the deluded remnants of a fallen kingdom. In the eyes of the Dolhr Empire, we're a pack of dead men who haven't accepted it yet."

At this, Cain's cheeks darkened to nearly match his hair.

"The prince ought to be more careful that these criminals don't slit his throat in the night," he snapped.

Some of the words Cain used might've stepped over a line of good manners, but Norne felt he was at least giving voice to reservations she felt in her own heart. Abel, though, just shook his head.

"A good man doesn't need a formal oath to keep him loyal. A traitor will break his oaths regardless. So far, our sworn allies have done us the most damage."

"We just have a keep an eye on the suspicious ones," Draug put in.

"They'll outnumber us before long," muttered Cain.

Norne decided that, as she shared Cain's suspicions of the newcomers, she ought to do something about it. She dropped a hint to Princess Caeda, and the princess spoke to Prince Marth, and shortly afterward Sir Jagen announced that Sister Lena would be sharing a tent with the princess and with Norne, who would watch out for her well-being.

Watch _over_ her, rather. Norne kept an eye on Sister Lena while she said her prayers for the night, and long after the cleric seemed to fall asleep, Norne stayed awake listening to the sound of her breathing.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

Author's Notes: Spot the reference to the _Fire Emblem_ anime. Also, spot the potential future traitor. :(

Draug and Norne's combat dynamic is based on the system used by Ajax the Great and his half-brother Teucer the archer in the _Iliad_. Best illustration I've ever seen of how a big armored dude and a little archer can "support" in battle.


	4. Abel Explains It All

**To Freely Serve**

Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Rated T for violence and offscreen character death.

* * *

**Chapter Four: Abel Explains It All**

"Look there, Norne. The Great Lea."

It was an ocean of tall grasses, waving in the wind just like ripples of green water. The grasses went on and on, as far as the eye could follow them. Norne felt sure that, if she ran into the Lea, the grass-tops would close right over her head, the same as the sea.

"I'd heard such a place existed, but I've never seen the like, sire."

"The Lea of Aurelis is the size of all Altea," said Prince Marth. "Half the grain harvested on Archanea comes from Aurelis. If this entire lea were planted with grain, and the grain shared with all the lands, none might ever go hungry again."

It sounded like a nice idea to Norne. It wasn't right, really, that Aurelis had so much fertile land while other kingdoms starved. Altea had been a nice place to live, to be sure, but in Talys they'd heard many tales of other lands, where the peasants chewed on roots and acorns just like hogs. In Talys, the poor got by sometimes by eating moss and seaweed. Camp rations seemed fine eating indeed compared with _that_.

They walked back to camp along the ridge of a hill. On one side of the ridge was the lea, on the other lay marshlands dotted by a chain of small ponds, like discs of pewter beneath the darkening sky.

"Do you notice anything odd about these marshes, Norne?"

"Well, we've been walking around for quite some time, and I've never seen or heard a living creature besides ourselves, sire. No birds, no frogs, not even any flies. Seems a bit strange to me."

"It _is_ strange, Norne."

"Well, it's nearly dark, and seems cold for summer, so maybe all the creatures have gone off to bed." Norne didn't believe herself; even at this hour, there ought to be birds.

No birds greeted them in the morning, either. The air was calm and still, as though a blue basin had been set over them all. As they began to cross the Lea, Norne realized her impression of the place as somewhere to drown was spot-on. The Lea looked flat from above, but once you were down in it, you couldn't see too far ahead, or behind, or anywhere. With no trees and no clouds to mark the horizon, it was a place where a person could get lost standing still. Norne stopped short, wondering if any of them really knew where they were headed. She nearly bumped into Julian, the ex-Soothsire who was acting as Sister Lena's protector.

"Oops. Heh, sorry-"

"Sh." Julian cut off her apology. "Do you hear that?" And he tipped his head to the side like a dog straining to hear its master.

"Attack!" Norne thought it was Sir Abel crying out from the van, and Sir Cain echoed him a second later. Then came the shouts of Sir Jagen and Captain Ogma as they directed their men to get into position. Norne scurried to her place in the second line, right behind Draug and his great shield. She looked around to see where Prince Marth might be; he was a few paces away with the "crazy pirate" Darros guarding his back.

"I think Dolhr and its allies have realized we're not here to fight bandits," he said, and his smile almost made Norne feel ashamed that she'd been scared for a moment. This what what they were here for, after all- to take on the great cavaliers of Grust, and the sky-riders of Macedon, and every dragon inside and outside of Dolhr.

-x-

Aurelis was one big battle that went on for days, but a the end of it they'd beaten back the imperial alliance and had even more in their army than before- and only lost a single man in doing it all. Two, if they counted one of the Aurelian knights who died before Lord Hardin and the rest of his Aurelians could join up the Prince Marth's Altean army. But Norne hadn't known Bord from Talys very well- couldn't tell him apart from his brother, to be honest- and she hadn't known Sir Vyland at all, so she wasn't grieving much during the service. She still hadn't seen anything quite as bad as when the village in Talys was sacked and burned. Hadn't seen anything that made a great ball of rage form in her heart, anyway.

"The gods are with us," said Father Wrys.

"Must be," agreed Norne. The gods had to be looking out for the old priest, that was for sure. She wasn't sure how the little man kept going, but he'd made it across the Lea in his long robes in spite of himself.

Things were going splendidly, as they done exactly what they'd set out to do. They'd joined up with Lord Hardin's men, and successfully defended Aurelis against the imperial alliance, and even met Nyna, the last Princess of Archanea. She looked like a storybook princess to Norne's eyes, golden-haired and glittering; the princess and the King of Aurelis thanked them all with a rich meal and Norne went to bed stuffed full with white bread, roasted fowl, and cherry tarts. They didn't let Norne and the other common soldiers have everything served at the royal table, but even in Altea she'd never eaten bread that good.

The next day word spread amongst the Alteans that the princess Nyna had gone and made their prince the commander of all her armies, such as they were.

"Isn't that a little..." Norne searched long and hard for the right word. "Irregular? I mean, there're men here with twice the experience of our prince, men who've been fighting since before he was born."

"True, Norne," Sir Abel replied. "But these are times in which all the usual rules have gone right out the window. Our enemies aren't playing by the normal rules of engagement, either."

Sir Cain just snorted.

"He's the highest-ranked person in this alliance besides the princess Nyna. Of course he has the command."

Draug nodded- that was just the Way Things Were- and Norne would have been satisfied by that, except that Abel wasn't.

"I believe a lot of people had the reasonable expectation that Lord Hardin would be assuming command," Abel said, and Norne saw a trace of that little smile he used in thorny situations. "Including Prince Marth."

Cain shrugged.

"It's done, and Princess Nyna herself sealed the command with her emblem. It's a good thing for us, as it means the future of Altea won't be forgotten in all this tumult."

That was a good point. Their mission already had taken so many twisting turns that sometimes it seemed like they would never be getting home; with Prince Marth in charge of it all, they'd be sure to set foot in Altea again. Or die trying. There always _was_ that little catch.

Cain went off pleased as pie about the new honors given their prince. Abel just shook his head.

"We all hold our prince in the highest affection and esteem, but Cain takes it to another level entirely," he said. "_I_ think it's a little mad to give someone so young command over all the armies of Her Highness."

"He's done a fine job in the Lea," Draug said, and Norne just bobbed her head in agreement. That much fighting, and so few lost- it had to count for something.

"Mm. You and I both know it's not just how a man handles success that defines a commander. It's how he handles himself in defeat. We won't really know Prince Marth's measure as a commander until things go very wrong, and I'm not looking forward to the day."

Norne didn't say anything for a minute or so; maybe Abel did have something there, but she didn't really want to think about it. Instead, she waited until Sir Jagen summoned Draug for something-or-other and then asked Abel a question she'd been afraid to ask with Big D present. It was a stupid question, maybe, and she didn't mind so much if Abel thought she didn't know anything about anything.

"What's it mean, that Princess Nyna gave our prince that emblem? Does he have to marry her now?"

"Not really, Norne. It means that Her Highness made our prince her champion, and like any lady's champion he's bound now to serve her."

"Ah."

"From what I've read, the emblem carries a magical contract. Prince Marth can't fail the princess, and he can't back out of the contract if he wanted to."

"Huh? How'd you mean that?"

"There's an old story, from about two hundred years back, of a princess who gave the emblem to her champion at a time when the kingdom was under attack from sea-raiders from the west. Her champion fell in combat, and the princess stood over his body and told him he dare not die on her when there was work to be done. According to the legend, the champion got to his feet and finished the task." The laughter went out of Abel's eyes as he told the story. "Well, his wounds wouldn't heal, and after that he begged the princess to return him to an honorable death, and she did. The emblem wasn't used again for a century..."

Norne shivered. From the way Abel told that tale, it sounded as though there was something sinister about the Fire Emblem.

**To Be Continued**

**

* * *

**Author's Note: This is not my 'standard' characterization for Cain, Abel, and a few other characters. For one, old story is old and this was written taking FE11 as a standalone game. For another, the existence of Norne and other "gaiden chapter" characters automatically made this story something of an AU to "real" Archanea canon in my mind. Hence the disparity. We apologize for the inconvenience.


	5. Detour in Pyrathi

**To Freely Serve**

Disclaimer: I do not own _Fire Emblem_ or any of its characters.

Rated T for violence and character death.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Detour in Pyrathi**

It was not long after they all left the fair land of Aurelis that Norne realized she wasn't having a good time. Part of it was that the army was just getting big; after years of thinking of herself a one of a select few, the most loyal of those loyal to Altea and the cause of light, Norne found herself lost in a crowd of fighters and didn't much care for it. But mostly her discontent came from the realization that they weren't fated to see Altea any time soon. It seemed like they had half the continent to liberate first, and having her own land be an afterthought to the cause of putting Princess Nyna back on her father's throne was... a strangely sour experience.

The parade of strange names and places became more of a disheartening blur; all she remembered of Leifcandith Valley was the the steady fall of sky-riders, the shrill screams from above and then the way the ground shook as the pegasi and their riders struck the earth.

Prince Marth said she did good work that day. All with her crossbow- she hadn't been willing to take chances with a new weapon, not with the Macedonian elite upon them. It was a good day's killing, Norne reflected. And that, after all, was her business at present.

-x-

Rebels by definition were traitors, and the penalty for treason was death. But, as with any crime, the penalties only mattered if you got caught.

Word filtered back to Norne and her comrades that the price for capturing Prince Marth- alive or otherwise- had gone up again and now was a truly royal sum, enough to set a man up in comfort for life. Under those circumstances, it might've been sensible to start playing "Marc the archer" again, but now that Prince Marth had raised his standard on the soil of Archanea, there was no going back. He was going to win Altea or lose his head in the process. They all had a date with the executioner, if it came to that- the firing squad, if they were lucky, and the gallows if they weren't. It was one thing to walk with pride toward a swift and clean death, but only royalty had that coming. Common little archers might as well be dragged kicking and screaming, as no matter how grand you posed on the gallows, all dignity fell away along with the trap.

Norne very nearly found out whether she was destined for the noose or the firing squad; they had a narrow escape at Port Warren and had to flee to the Isle of Pyrathi to escape the Grustian armies. Down at the docks, it was every man for himself, and Norne felt that she was reliving the death of Altea all over again as she scrambled onto the ship for Pyrathi. She was separated from the other Alteans in the mess, and ended up bunking with one of Lord Hardin's knights, a boy of fifteen or thereabouts named Roshea. Norne was interested in talking with him, as she figured he would know something about mounted archery, but it turned out that Roshea wasn't a bowman for all that he'd been born on the Great Lea. He told her to speak with his comrades, Wolf and Sedgar, but those two were on yet another ship, and Norne's curiosity would just have to wait.

-x-

Pyrathi was a strange place indeed, a mix of political exiles from the mainland and the locals who lived in their shadow, all of them under the even greater shadow of King Mannu. It was like a nightmare version of Talys, Norne decided, a place where they 'welcomed' you by looking away. The fear ran so thick she could almost smell it in the streets.

"At least we didn't take this as our hiding place," she muttered to herself as she followed Captain Ogma along a narrow footbridge. "I reckon they'd have turned the lot of us over to the highest bidder."

The captain shot her an odd look, but he didn't say anything at the time. That night, as they camped within sight of Mannu's fortress, he let on that he'd been raised in Pyrathi- not by choice, as his family'd been exiled there by the Archanean king.

"This was Princess Nyna's father?"

The captain made a curt nod by way of replying.

Norne would dearly have liked to know why this family was sent to this giant prison of an island, but she daren't ask. What she did ask, though, wasn't exactly proper.

"I've been hearing quite a few things- from the Aurelians, and elsewhere- about the late king and some of the things he got up to. It all doesn't exactly sound... wholesome."

Specifically, she'd heard a few things from Roshea about the problems between his own lord and the Archanean king, but she didn't really want Roshea to be in trouble for it. This was the Archanean army now, or at least that's what Nyna's people called it.

"There are reasons the mainland fell to Dolhr as easily as it did," was all the Captain would say about it, but that was more than enough.

-x-

King Mannu wasn't a wholesome character, either. Norne'd heard Mannu's own people call him a monster, but she didn't realize the truth of it until the bearded old man in front of her transformed into a great scaled beast, near to thirty feet long and breathing out fire. Even when Norne thought it over afterward, she couldn't quite recollect how exactly it happened. But she saw the old stooped man, and she saw the beast and felt the warm air of his breath on her face, and she spent the rest of that battle under the protection of Draug's shield. Her arrows had about as much effect on Mannu's hide as paper darts would've, but she did try. Abel's javelins didn't do much to him, either, and no one wanted to get within striking range of that saw-toothed mouth with its tongue of fire.

Almost no one, anyway. It was Captain Ogma who held Mannu off, drawing blood from his former sovereign without a trace of remorse. But his great steel blade seemed to annoy the wyrm-king more than anything, and as Norne watched this one-sided duel, she began to understand exactly what it meant to them all that St. Anri had given them a victory over the dragons. Even the strongest man was to a dragon what a rat might be to a dog, an obnoxious trifling thing to be seized, and broken, and thrown to the side.

So when the other half of their army burst in from the south, and she heard Prince Marth send up his war-cry, Norne's greatest instinct was to tell the prince to stay right where he was if he ever wanted to see Altea again. But he charged in, the same way he'd rushed the bandit king of the Dragon's Teeth, and struck out like he didn't know what "fear" even meant.

Close enough to feel the heat of Mannu's fire was close enough to hear the blood hissing and boiling in the wound Prince Marth's sword made in Mannu's side. Norne saw a great scaled neck arching up and back, and a tail jerking back, and then Draug had her by the collar and they were both half-running, half-falling, away from the scene of the wyrm-king's death throes.

He turned back into a man as he died, a naked old man with nothing to hide his withered flesh. That was the worst of it, Norne thought. His beastly true form was like something she'd dreamed up on a bad night, but his ruined human body wasn't a sight she could shrug off so easily. He might've been one of her own "old men," or the fallen patrons of the Blue Pegasus.

-x-

"So, how did Prince Marth know to find that sword? I don't know that even the locals here knew about the Wyrmslayer." Norne carefully avoided looking in Captain Ogma's direction; she had the idea that he didn't want his upbringing bandied around.

"Bantu told him of it," said Cain.

"Bantu?" Norne craned her neck to catch a glimpse of the old-timer who'd joined them in Leifcandith. She'd taken him for a sage whose powers had faded with age- an advisor, like Sir Malledus, not a warrior.

"Bantu has a lot of... knowledge," said Abel. "And a lot of secrets, I think."

And the three of them watched the old man in crimson robes for a time. Bantu was eating his supper like the rest of them. It seemed normal enough, but Norne thought the uneasy expressions of the knights probably mirrored her own. They weren't quite so trusting of the bent and gray-haired forms of old men, now.

Norne was glad that her nerve was up, because they had an unexpected visitor after supper, in the hour of dusk when the light played tricks on the eye. She saw it, though, high in the west, and her gut knew the sight before her mind took it in.

"It's a sky-rider."

The only pegasus knight Norne wasn't supposed to shoot was Princess Caeda, and the princess and her pegasus were already safe on the ground. This would be a perfect test of her longbow- if she missed, there was still time to shoot this rider down with a crossbow bolt.

"Hold fire, Norne."

"Sire, that's a Macedonian." Norne didn't take her eyes off the target for one second. She wouldn't disobey her lord, but all the same she was there to protect him...

"I know it, Norne. I recognize her from our encounter in Leifcandith Valley." Something in his voice made Norne look away from the target, and she saw a curious little smile light up Prince Marth's face. "I'll wager she was sent here by Princess Minerva."

Norne didn't remember the Macedonians who'd flown away- only the dead ones. But Prince Marth bade them to let Dame Catria of Macedon land safely, and then the pair of them had a lengthy chat in the company of Sir Jagen, Sir Malledus, and Lord Hardin, and then Catria was allowed to spent the night in their camp before she flew back to the mainland.

Something, clearly, was up... and Norne realized that she'd find out what that something was when those above her decided she needed to know. If ever that day did arrive.

**To Be Continued**

* * *

A/N: I seriously doubt Marth tells his whole army, "Hey, we've got a Fire Dragon in the ranks." At least, he wouldn't if he doesn't use Bantu in battle. And in this case, he's not using Bantu, because Bantu's dragonstone has better uses down the line.


End file.
